Overview

When Whistler submitted The White Girl to the Paris Salon in 1863, the tradition–bound jury refused to show the work. Napoleon III invited avant–garde artists who had been denied official space to show their paintings in a "Salon des Refusés," an exhibition that triggered enormous controversy. Whistler's work met with severe public derision, but a number of artists and critics praised his entry. In the Gazette des Beaux–Arts, Paul Manz referred to it as a "symphony in white," noting a musical correlation to Whistler's paintings that the artist himself would address in the early 1870s, when he retitled a number of works "Nocturne," "Arrangement," "Harmony," and "Symphony."

Whistler used variations of white pigment to create interesting spatial and formal relationships. By limiting his palette, minimizing tonal contrast, and sharply skewing the perspective, he flattened forms and emphasized their abstract patterns. This dramatic compositional approach reflects the influence of Japanese prints, which were becoming well known in Paris as international trade increased.

Clearly, Whistler was more interested in creating an abstract design than in capturing an exact likeness of the model, his mistress Joanna Hiffernan. His radical espousal of a purely aesthetic orientation and the creation of "art for art's sake" became a virtual rallying cry of modernism.

Inscription

upper right: Whistler. 1862

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Sold 1866 by the artist to his half-brother, George W. Whistler [d. 1869], London, but retained possession; bequeathed to his wife, Mrs. George W. Whistler [d. 1875]; sent 1875 by the artist to her son, Thomas Delano Whistler, Baltimore, Maryland; sold 28 February 1896 for Thomas D. Whistler by (Boussod Valladon & Cie, New York) to Harris Whittemore [1864-1927], Naugatuck, Connecticut; sold 1897 to his father, John Howard Whittemore [d. 1910], Naugatuck, Connecticut; bequeathed to the J.H. Whittemore Company, Naugatuck, Connecticut, with life interest to John Howard Whittemore's daughter, Miss Gertrude B. Whittemore [d. 1941], Naugatuck, Connecticut;[1] gift 1943 to NGA.

[1] Andrew McLaren Young, Margaret F. MacDonald, and Robin Spencer, with the assistance of Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven, 1980: 18, lists the last owners of the painting as Harris Whittemore's son and daughter, Harris Whittemore, Jr., and Mrs. Charles S. Upson. They were officers of the J. H. Whittemore Company (Harris Whittemore, Jr., was President), the actual owner of the painting.

Memorial Exhibition of the Works of the late James McNeill Whistler, First President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, New Gallery, London, 1905, no. 37, as The Woman in White, Symphony in White, No. 1.

Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art: The Official Art Exhibit of the Great Lakes Exposition, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1936, no. 377, repro. LXXV, as The White Girl, Symphony in White, No. 1.

Art in Our Time: an Exhibition to celebrate the Tenth Anniversary of the Museum of Modern Art and the opening of its New Building held at the time of the New York World's Fair, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1939, no. 45, as The White Girl.

Modern Masters from European and American Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, January-March 1940, no. 1, as The White Girl, repro.

1940

Old Masters and Modern American and French paintings from the San Francisco Exposition, and the Los Angeles County Fair, and from individual dealers, The Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, October-November 1940, no cat.

Bouton, Margaret. American Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number One in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 32, color repro., as The White Girl.

1960

The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 26, as The White Girl.

Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 238-244, color repro.